Rioux Rejoins Board, Sees Budget Issues

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Category: News

Created on Thursday, 24 October 2024 14:46

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By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    At a special meeting Wednesday, the Sitka School Board appointed Paul Rioux to fill a vacant seat on the five-member body.
    Rioux, who served on the board from 2019 to 2022 and again as an appointed member for a brief stint this September, was the only applicant for the one-year term. All four sitting board members – Phil Burdick, Amanda Williams, Steve Morse and Tom Williams – voted in favor of Rioux.

Paul Rioux is sworn in as a school board member Wednesday. (Sentinel Photo)

    The process took less than ten minutes.
    After the meeting Rioux said he chose not to run in the municipal election earlier this month because he “was just hesitant to make a three-year commitment at this point. I wanted to give it a chance, and I kind of waited and monitored to see if anyone was going to jump in, and nobody did. So I made a decision to go ahead and put another letter of interest to fill in for a year, because I think the board could always use the help, especially when there’s an empty seat.”
    The vacancy was created when only one candidate, Amanda Williams, filed for two open seats in this year’s election.
    Rioux mentioned difficult issues the board faced in his previous three-year board term, and told the Sentinel he expects similar problems in the coming year, particularly when it comes to forming the budget.
    “It was a really tough three years that I served,” he said. “Last time we had to do an interim (superintendent) hire and a superintendent hire and certainly a bunch of budget woes. And I guess I’m just hoping to bring some of my experience… and try to be a help over this next year here. I can’t imagine that we won’t face some of the same challenges.”
    The Sitka School District, like those around the state, has faced steep budget cuts in recent years, a process Rioux was familiar with from his time on the board.
    In the fiscal year 2024 budget cycle, the board cut 16 teaching positions.
    “That’s always really sad,” Rioux said. “It’s so difficult to build a budget in a down year... It’s a really, really difficult thing, and we’ve had a lot of people in this town that have served on this board that have had to do that,” he said. “Over the last 20 years, we’ve lost a lot of programs and a lot of instruction and librarians and different positions and whatnot. And it’s not an easy thing to do to have to take something away, but we have no way to raise funds, so we have to build a budget around the funds that we’re given.”
    After Rioux took the oath of office, the board reorganized, naming Phil Burdick president, Tom Williams vice president and Steve Morse clerk. As board representatives, Amanda Williams will liaise with Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary, Rioux with Pacific High, Tom Williams with Sitka High, Morse with Xoots Elementary and Burdick with Blatchley Middle School.
    In government interactions, Rioux will work with Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and Burdick with the Assembly.
    The board also took steps toward reestablishing a district budget committee.
    The goal would be “to make sure we get the right feedback to make sure that we’re holding on to the programs that we want to and that there’s stakeholder input about how and what we’re willing to let go,” Burdick said when suggesting recreating a budget committee. In years past the committee existed alongside ones on curricula, technology and activities.
    “The purpose of a budget committee is maybe to help give some structure to our work sessions,” Superintendent Deidre Jenson said. “If the committee can say ‘here’s our process for getting input from our stakeholders, here’s what our steps are, here’s what we need to do next; here’s this meeting, here’s this work session. How do we want to lay that work session out?’ Then that work session can then have a little more structure to it, and a little more input to the structure, rather than just maybe myself and the board president.”
    Burdick hopes to see broader involvement in the budget process in the coming year, including in the early stages. Board members discussed how large an initial budget committee should be, with Burdick in favor of a larger group, and Williams in support of a smaller cadre at the outset.
    The board didn’t vote on the topic, but agreed on the principle of reestablishing a budget committee.
    The board next meets Tuesday, Nov. 5, in the Sitka High library.